The Budget Debate and the Library

[Debbie G]

The following information is correspondence between city council and constituents with regards to the budget cuts.  Let it be known that the library is lobbying heavily against cutting their budget and Council member Crescimbeni is on the board of directors for the "Friends of the Jacksonville Public Library, Inc." 

There is no agenda in posting this information other than to present a transparent process, disclosure of associations, to Duval citizens as well as the pro and con of the library argument. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Board of Directors - Officers

• Harry Reagan, President
• John Crescimbeni,Vice President
• Nitya Sivasubramanian, Membership VP
• Margaret Smith, Treasurer
• Jacquelyn Nash ,Past Pres. & Secretary

 

 

Sent: 9/26/2011 10:41:50 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Library budget cuts

 

I agree .  There should be small fee asked for a library card.  Given the amount of unlimited services that card supplies, a few dollars a year would be a small thing to ask.  I wonder if (councilmember) has considered this.  Certainly it was suggested at the meeting Clay had by another person who was there as was a deal between JEA and the library for utilities.

 

In a message dated 9/26/2011 10:12:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes:

Its just that I believe every agency and anyone associated with them(especially if they have a  (councilmember)  and Regan who know how to work the system) will always want more and be able to justify the reason for the need to take "other" people's  money. If it was their money only ,would they spend the same amount.

If only library users had to pay the cost to use -  would they take a closer look at the need to stay open the days and hours they do? If users only had to pay the full cost of the library budget would money be spent the same way it is now and in the same amount?

Recipients of any service will always want more as long as most of the cost is paid entirely or mostly with others money. Isn't it just human nature?

Many will feel that way about other agencies or services that government provides but if its one they personally use .... well  ..................

Go ahead and stay open the hours that are proposed to be cut - but charge those that want to use during those hours. We will quickly see how important those hours of use really are.

Library use- free to children?. Require adult users to pay an annual fee for a library card?  

---------- Original Message ----------

Subject: Re: Thank you for all your hard work on the budget
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:00:44 -0400 (EDT)

So this is a ploy to keep budgets at current levels???

 

 

In a message dated 9/25/2011 8:50:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes:

As does the Library here, each agency has their justifications for spending to continue at current levels.    

However, only the most effective at lobbying have a Councilmember, (councilmember), who is Vice President of their Volunteers and whose President, Harry Reagan, is a former WJXT Channel 4 Executive and a former City Council member. Both know how to abuse their influence and manipulate for their cause. The Library Board and "Friends of the Library" really know how to construct an effective lobbying body. 

Councilmembers who are part of any group that is seeking taxpayer money should not be allowed to vote on that specific appropriation or spending item except in the annual budget taken as the whole. It should be an Ethics issues but currently it is not.

We have been told that we face even larger stress next year. Are there some other targets we need to work on for spending cuts or elimination ? - Yes -. We might could get to some of those if some of the energy to restore cuts was also targeted at council to make additional cuts. 

(councilmember) can talk about other spending but these cuts prevented about 3 million in borrowing adding to our debt.

This budget is balanced only because there is 10s of millions in borrowing to fund planned projects. 

With the information below -   Does anyone really know the significance of these numbers? "The Rest of the Story" ?. The complete story. I don't believe every Library has to be open everyday for the numbers of hours they are open with the number of libraries in close proximity to another while we are in this financial stress.

I understand for some that its not easy.

---------- Original Message ----------

Subject: Fwd: Thank you for all your hard work on the budget
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:48:51 -0400 (EDT)

I hope if you do not have this already, it will give you more information on the condition of the library cuts being made in this year's budget.  I hope the attached spread sheet comes through but if it does not, please let me know and I will send it separately.  This is a real problem as I supported the budget based on what I knew and (councilmember) presentation, and it would appear more massive cuts were made to the library than I originally thought, so now, I will have to send something short to council members saying I think they should restore at least part of the money to the library due to additional information I know have.  Certainly, an egg on face moment for me as I will be sending this out to all of you too, but I did not know that the 2.1 million price the library gave was still kept at 2.6 by the council which is a huge amount of money along with the 900,000 the mayor had already cut.  But I won't go on.  The information below is well explained by (councilmember), and I highly recommend reading it and looking at the attached spread sheet. 

 

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Sent: 9/24/2011 5:45:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: RE: Thank you for all your hard work on the budget

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I need to state up front that (in addition to serving on the City Council) I also serve as Vice President of the Friends of Jacksonville Public Library – an organization whose sole purpose is to raise money for the JPL system.  With that said, I am a strong advocate for (and supporter of) the JPL.

As you probably know, the budget for the JPL was reduced significantly by the Finance Committee during the recent budget hearing process held at City Hall.  As a member of the Finance Committee, I want to provide you with some background on the budgetary process and what specific reductions were made by the Finance Committee.

Budget Background

Please note the budget for the JPL includes a number of expenses which fall into what I describe as three basic categories.  Those three categories are controllable costs, internal service charges and indirect costs.

Controllable costs are those expenses that are within the control of the JPL Board of Trustees and Executive Director.  Controllable costs include salaries, employee benefits, utilities, books and materials.

Internal service charges are expenses of other units of city government allocated to the JPL by the mayor.  Internal service charges include cost allocations from Fleet Management, the Information Technologies Department (ITD) and the Office of General Counsel – to name a few.

Indirect costs are the most difficult to explain.  According to the glossary for the City of Jacksonville Annual Budget, indirect costs are “administrative and overhead expenses attendant to the performance of a service that are not actually considered to be an integral part of that service.”  The indirect cost allocation permits the library to reflect a true cost of doing business by adding the fractional expense of such city administrative functions as payroll, accounting, building use, administrative services, among the variety of support provided by other General Fund departments.

It is important to note that the JPL is the only city department assigned an indirect cost allocation.  The indirect costs are computed annually but are based on “actual” expenditures from two years prior.  The JPL needs the indirect cost allocation because that figure is often required on grant applications for state and federal funding.  The grant applications require that the JPL show the true cost of doing business when compared (by the grant agency) to other libraries competing in the pool.  Failing to show the indirect cost would result in lower funding from these external providers as many grants are matching fund grants (such as the State Aid to Public Libraries Grant from the Florida State Library Division).  The JPL’s need for a computed indirect cost allocation (for grant application purposes) has resulted in that same figure being included with each year’s annual budget.

The indirect cost allocation (since FY 2005) has been as follows;

 FY 04-05      FY 05-06   FY 06-07   FY 07-08   FY 08-09      FY 09-10   FY 10-11

2,591,869

2,803,964

2,803,964

5,185,474

6,872,583

8,936,376

8,213,899

 

The complete JPL City Council approved budget for the 2010-11 (current) fiscal year is summarized as follows;

 

Salaries                                                              14,309,242

Employee Benefits                                                 4,051,866

Expendable Accounts                                            2,880,304

Books and Materials                                              3,107,629

ITD Network and Computer Charges                        5,559,251

Internal Service Charges                                         1,480,568

Indirect Cost Allocation                                          8,213,899

Total                                                                   39,602,759

 

Development of JPL’s 2011-12 Budget

Up until Mayor Brown took office and presented his FY 2011/12 budget to the City Council (on July 15, 2011), the library budget had been a moving target.

In March, the Peyton administration requested that the Library Board of Trustees submit a 2011-12 budget that reflected a 15% reduction from this year’s City Council approved budget (of $39.6 million).  The 15% reduction request computed to $5,940,414.  However, the 15% reduction request from the Peyton administration was accompanied with instructions that the reduction could not be taken from the indirect cost or internal service charge line items.  Instead, the reduction could only come from controllable costs – a pool that totaled only $24,349,041.  Therefore, a $5.9 million reduction from only controllable costs wasn’t a $15% reduction, it was actually a 24.2% reduction.

As directed, the Board of Library Trustees complied a budget reduced by $5.9 million and submitted it to the administration in April.  To meet the $5.9 million reduction, all libraries would curtail service hours to 40 hours per week, Tuesdays through Saturdays (no Sunday hours anywhere), and the Maxville Branch would be closed altogether.  In addition, 78 full-time positions and 25 part-time positions would be eliminated.

During the review process, the administration requested JPL to submit a second - less severe - budget that would maintain status quo at all locations, but would eliminate all costs that would not affect current service hours.  JPL submitted a second budget which would only eliminate approximately $425,000 by cutting janitorial and security contracts, maintenance contracts on equipment, hardware and software licensing fees, and operating supplies.  This second budget was incorporated in Mayor’s Peyton’s preliminary budget submittal to Council in May via Ordinance 2011-307.

On June 24, the Budget Office requested JPL to submit a third budget with a reduction in the amount of $2 million - above and beyond the $425,000 submitted in April.  The new reduction amount of $2,425,000 from the FY 2010-11 (current) Council approved budget represented a reduction percentage of 6.1% overall (or 9.9% of controllable costs).  A third budget reflecting this reduction was submitted to the administration on July 5, 2011.

The Actual 2011-12 JPL Budget as proposed by Mayor Brown

On July 15, 2011, Mayor Brown delivered a balanced budget to the City Council which included a $905,502 reduction to the budget of JPL as compared to the current year’s budget.  The mayor’s proposed JPL budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year is summarized as follows;

Salaries                                                              14,253,352

Employee Benefits                                               14,253,352

Expendable Accounts                                            2,446,453

Books and Materials                                              3,107,629

ITD Network and Computer Charges                        4,750,996

Internal Service Charges                                         1,391,039

Indirect Cost Allocation                                          8,624,606

Total                                                                   38,696,857

Finance Committee Action Impacting the 2011-12 JPL Budget

The JPL budget was reviewed by the Finance Committee on August 25, 2011.  Following discussion about the same, Committee Chairman Richard Clark stated that closing all libraries one day a week was more equitable than closing certain branch libraries – as has been suggested (or threatened, depending on your perspective) in the past.  Chairman Clark offered a motion to reduce the JPL budget by amount equivalent to the savings achieved by closing all libraries on Monday - or $2.9 million.  Barbara Gubbin, the Executive Director for JPL who was present for the JPL budget hearing stated that in anticipation of a Council Member moving to reduce the JPL budget by an amount equal to the savings achieved by closing all libraries one day a week, she had run the calculation and the actual cost savings would only be $2.1 million.  Although the Finance Committee voted to approve the Clark motion, I did not support this reduction.

On August 30, 2011, the Finance Committee conducted a final wrap-up meeting for the budget hearing process.  Although I was excused (out of town) and did not attend the meeting, the Finance Committee adopted a motion to require all components of city government to absorb the additional cost resulting from the City Council’s recent action to accept (not waive) the October 1, 2010 actuarial study for the General Employees Pension Plan (GEPP).  Accepting the actuarial study will, effective October 1, 2011, raise the employer (city’s) contribution rate on all salaries paid to GEPP participants from the current 13.5% level to 17.22%.  The overall impact of accepting the actuarial study results in a $5.8 million deficit in next year’s budget, and the JPL’s pro rata share of that deficit is estimated to be $476,000.  Unless reversed, the Finance Committee’s motion will require an additional cut of $476,000 from the JPL budget.

At the regular Finance Committee meeting held on September 7, 2011, we worked on wrapping up a few loose ends relating to the budget.  During the discussion, I offered a motion to restore the $2.1 million cut to the JPL budget.  Although my motion received a second, my motion failed by a vote of 2-5.

All tolled, the Finance Committee reduced the JPL budget (during the budget hearing process) by nearly $2.6 million.  Combined with Mayor Brown’s original proposed reduction of $905,502, the total reduction to the JPL budget (as compared to the current fiscal year) is approximately $3.4 million – or a reduction of nearly 8.6%.  Furthermore, if you remove the $8.2 million indirect cost (a phantom cost that is never shown for any other city department or division in the general fund) from the current budget, next year’s $3.4 million cut actually represents a 10.8% reduction.

Going Forward

As you will see from the attached spreadsheet (which depicts the mayor’s proposed 2011-12 budget for the JPL as of July 15, 2011, as well as JPL expenses for each fiscal year beginning with and since FY 2004-05), the library management team has done a remarkable job in reducing “controllable” costs from $25.5 million in 2005, to $24.4 million in 2011.  However, an examination of “internal service charges” and “indirect costs” (costs passed on to the JPL by the city which JPL has no control over) quickly reveals that indirect costs have more than tripled: from $5 million in 2005, to $15.2 million in 2011 – this year’s budget.

Furthermore, inasmuch as an 8.6% reduction was not asked of all other components of city government, I feel the JPL is being unfairly targeted to carry more than their fair share of reductions – particularly when considering JPL’s controllable costs are actually lower now than they were in 2005.    In addition, it is important to note that the Finance Committee completed the budget hearing process with more than an $8.9 million surplus.  Of this amount, $5 million was applied to facilities capital maintenance expenditures and the remainder ($3,932.043) was applied toward road resurfacing – both on a pay-as-you go basis.  (Funding used for facilities capital maintenance and road resurfacing projects is ordinarily borrowed.)

To wrap up, please be advised that a public hearing on the proposed millage rate (bill number 2011-401) and the proposed budget (bill number 2011-405) will be held at the next City Council meeting on September 27, 2011.  It’s at that meeting that the City Council must adopt (vote on) a final budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year.  The City Council meeting begins at 5:00 PM and is held in the City Council chambers located on the first floor of City Hall.  As a library supporter, I encourage you to consider attending the meeting to voice your concerns about the proposed reductions to the JPL budget.

In closing, I apologize for the length of this reply, but hope you find the information herein to be useful.  In addition, I want to thank you again for writing to me on behalf of the Jacksonville Public Library.

 

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Subject: Re: Thank you for all your hard work on the budget

Send on the library summary you wrote if you would, I would love to read it.  And thank you for your honesty.  You can't know how much I appreciate it!  I was part of some of the meetings as others were, but between the town hall budget meeting Clay ran and what I could and did do as far as attendance to budget meeting and city council meetings and having to miss the meeting for finance budget meeting with Journey I sorely wanted to be there for, I was ill prepared for your comments (makes me wish I hadn't said I supported the budget now).  There are so many things you have to stay on top of and so many meetings, I truly don't know how you all do it. 

I made a real effort to be there for the police department, library, children's commission and Journey (or at least I wanted to hear what the folks from Journey had to say and be present for the discussion between the council and Journey).  Then, like you, we had already had a trip to New England planned to see my Mom and family .......one we kept saying all summer we would make and then it was August (and it snows up there so we set the dates and went as we should have earlier). 

I still commend you all for your steadfastness and the amount of hours you put into this budget and the amount of work you did!  One gets the feeling our city government has grown beyond the point where it ought to be! 

In a message dated 9/23/2011 7:18:34 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes:

 

I don’t recall any cuts to the Children’s Commission (other than what was originally proposed in Mayor Brown’s budget presented on July 15, 2011).  I do recall Jacksonville Journey being cut by $1.4 million, but I think that amount equates to a 6.7% cut from last year, not a 25% cut.

Like you, I missed the wrap up meeting held August 30, 2011, because I was in Chicago – a trip I scheduled around the original budget hearing schedule (which didn’t include a meeting for August 30).

With regard to the library cuts, the Finance Committee cut an additional $2.6 million above and beyond the $900,000 cut (from last year) included in the Mayor’s budget.  And while the library can make cuts anywhere it would like, a $3.5 million total cut is almost impossible to absorb without closing one day a week.  If you would like more information on the library cut, I wrote a lengthy summary about it and will gladly forward it to you if you are interested in reading it.

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Subject: Re: Thank you for all your hard work on the budget

Hello back,

I had not idea they had defined how the library cuts were to be set forth.  I had understood at the meeting Clay Yarborough had about the budget and budget cuts that the library could choose to implement the cuts as they chose?  Clay even told people to contact the library board about how these cuts in funding are implemented, so apparently the information we got was not complete?

Am I to gather we are leaving the children's commission intact without much in cuts (not a city service) while cutting the library (which is a city service)?  I attended the budget finance committee meeting when children's commission and journey were to be on the docket (but journey folks were too busy (we were out of town the following week when journey was discussed and a colleague said Journey was cut 25%).  I did not hear much about cuts in children's commission budget and I don't remember it being on the list Clay had now that I think of it.

Not one mention was made about cutting the meetings videos at Clay's budget meeting either, and I have to say, I watch them and would find it to be a hardship not to have the videos and still stay informed.  Many of us can't go downtown (many do not have the $3.00 to $10.00 depending on meters, parking garage or lots for parking) all the time when committees meet.  I agree very much that it will make the city government far less transparent, and it takes yet another service away from the taxpayers while allowing over the top raises to JPO management (to date I don't think that line item was cut?).  I was not going to say a word about JPO as long as enough cuts were made to present a balanced budget and there were no new taxes for folks, but I agree with you totally.  

Thank you for letting me know.  It may be too late to change anything at this point, but switching one city service for another is hardly proper when we have items in the budget that ARE NOT city services and tax dollars are being used for them.

I was also pleased the Journey got cut this year as they were/are building an empire (which is what happens to commissions like this left to run unfettered) and had suggested to Mr. Yarborough that this function really should be under the JSO, since it is primarily a crime prevention program and some of the police officers who might be cut might run it instead of the appointed people currently running it (most of our police officers have college degrees and am sure some have degrees that quality them to work with people in this age group..........then, we would still have these officers if there was an emergency that required extra policemen).  It would also put the Journey under the auspices of an elected official who is accountable for a budget and to the residents of Duval county. 

 

In a message dated 9/23/2011 1:07:42 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes:

 

While generally supportive of the Finance Committee’s actions, I am troubled that the city intends to spend $12+ million resurfacing roads next year while at the same time closing most libraries two days a week and one library permanently.  I think that is bad policy.  I also think discontinuing the airing of City Council meetings on a free television station (WJCT Channel 7) and instead restricting meeting broadcasts to Comcast customers or people with Internet access – makes for much less than “transparent” government.  I think that’s bad policy as well.

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Subject: Thank you for all your hard work on the budget

I want to take a few minutes today to let you know how much I appreciate your hard work on the budget and all the extra hours you and your colleagues invested in getting a good budget together with the cuts needed and shifts made in revenue that allowed you to balance the budget to existing revenues and get the work of the city done as well. I am grateful you have all worked together to find a way to make the budget work for the taxpayers this year as I have neighbors both here near our residence and close to another small house we own that are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.  One such neighbor asked me to please get the neighbors involved (which was huge for her as she never says anything about such things so I know things are not good for her). 

I also want to let you know that I was present at some of the budget finance meeting and watched some of the other meetings as well as discussing the meetings with others who were following them closely, and I appreciated the fact that you brought up some potential cuts several times and made comments about various issues that.were important to the consideration of further cuts.  I know you didn't get everything you wanted (neither did I), but I am so glad you have things all balanced out and all of you appear to be pretty much in agreement.

I hope you will stand firm on what you have even though I suspect you will have many in attendance the night the budget is brought up next Tuesday.